


Remember?

by Seachelle623



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Dead People, I wrote this for an exam, M/M, Memories, Newspapers, Photography, Pictures, Repressed Memories, Selfies, There's a firetruck, There's chewing gum too, apparitions - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 14:04:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20437250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seachelle623/pseuds/Seachelle623
Summary: The ice cream that day had tasted like heaven……but now, the same flavor tasted like regret.





	Remember?

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this is one of my creative writing exams and scored pretty well on it even when I had several songs like Chewing Gum and Firetruck on repeat for two hours straight. Please keep in mind that this is not up on par with my other stories as it wasn't really EDITED and was written in 20 minutes...max. I think I actually took less time since I had to evaluate it. But, regardless, I still think it's entertaining but you might want to read the tags before starting.

“Look at how small you were.”

Smiling, Jeno looked over his friend’s shoulder, staring down at the picture of a miniature him on the phone in his hand. He seemed to be around eight – maybe nine – with wide, innocent eyes that only held curiosity and a desire to discover the unknown. His chubby cheeks had chocolate ice cream smeared on them, at least Jeno hoped it was chocolate ice cream, and he found himself staring at the screen in disbelief – had he really been that small?

“Remember when you used to come up to here?” Jeno nodded when he saw the other in his shirt that was the same shade as the firetruck that haunted his dreams. He didn’t bother paying attention to the height of the other’s hand, too preoccupied with the taste of salt mixing in with the minty chewing gum spreading on his tongue with a siren blasting its tune in his head.

How long had it been since that day?

They had gone out together, the elder treating a ten-year-old Jeno to chocolate ice cream for learning a whole routine for the school’s play in a mere week. The elder, despite being at the tender age of eleven, had courageously paid for their cones, his shaking hands passing several notes and quickly retreating to his pockets once the coins had fell into his grasp.

The ice cream that day had tasted like heaven…

…but now, the same flavor tasted like regret.

Jeno let his eyes tray from his friend who was happily swiping through photos on his phone, eagerly showing them to Jeno with wide, innocent eyes that only held curiosity and a desire to discover the unknown. The happiness in the other’s eyes – in his voice, his actions – only served to place a hand around Jeno’s heart, squeezing and suffocating him from the inside. Each word that fell from his friend’s lips tore down a locked door that he had built through tears – tears that had previously mingled with mint on his palate in the dead of night, streaks of red blurring in his vision with the vehicle that was the same shade as his friend’s shirt.

Firetruck red.

Blurring at maximum speed.

The siren drowning out his meek shouts and cried for his friend to reunite with him.

Behind the other, past his red shirt, lay the creamy shade of an old newspaper, now several years old and nearing disintegration. Jeno’s friend, who was now reminiscing about the way Jeno had danced at a concert last year, had written him an essay on the notion of newspapers becoming redundant. Jeno, however, ignored him – just as he always did, just as he was doing now. He couldn’t see much from where he stood but Jeno knew the content on that newspaper like he knew the kindness of the men in red suits who had given him a blanket and told him comforting lies.

Splotches of red fabric that had been singed with a black border stealing most of the frame – a neck, part of an arm and some grass had been included too but there hadn’t been any room for a face or even an identification card.

There had only been room for a wide eyed, innocent child to be pushed to the front, pressured to say “yes, it’s him” before the photographers clouded his view like the smoke before had.

Underneath it all, lay a name that he hadn’t uttered in years, too scared of the result and what could occur.

MARK LEE

His friend turned towards him curiously, the utterance of his name disturbing his happiness.

AGED 17

Jeno couldn’t help but bite his lip, not wanting to remember their plans for the other’s coming-of-age birthday celebration.

REST IN PEACE

“Jeno?” He heard Mark ask, the other reaching out for him – just to touch, if only they could touch and he could feel the warmth of the other once more.

“It’s okay. I’m here.”

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go with 10 fun facts:
> 
> 1) I literally wrote "I used the taste of chewing gum to show how hard it is to get rid of traumatic memories like how chewing gum is hard to get rid of on a shirt or shoe" in the critical analysis section of this piece because I couldn't write that the song was stuck in my head  
2) I chose Jeno and Mark because their names were the shortest  
3) Apparently a lot of people wrote about death in the exam but I was unique since Mark was dead from the beginning anyway  
4) Lowkey based off my reading of Hag-Seed (Margaret Atwood) which, long story short, is basically Shakespeare's The Tempest but with a ghost who became Mark  
5) Deadass used ice cream because Jaemin's iconic 'ice cream' popped up in my head while I was in the exam room  
6) I thought the whole think was a joke and would get a 0  
7) Reading back on it, I realise how much it hurts to read that last line but I thought it was a masterpiece when I left the exam room  
8) I looked like an idiot mumbling "chew chew chew chew chewing gum" while writing about the taste of chewing gum  
9) The stimulus asked me to use a motif of a photograph to evoke memories and I did not even do that but that's okay because I'm satisfied  
10) I was so close to just rewriting Renjun's five panels from This Is Us and Jeno and Jaemin's reactions to them when I realised that I go to a Catholic school and that polyamory isn't supported there. So I came up with this crappy story.
> 
> ________________
> 
> I do not own NCT Dream, or even NCT in general. I only own the plot. All credit goes to rightful owners.


End file.
